How Liberal Judges Can Use a Roberts-Invented Judicial Tool to Curb Trump

President Donald Trump appears to be perilously close to invoking a law from the early 19th century , the Insurrection Act , as a basis for deploying regular troops to police American cities.

Julian Zelizer : With the adults long since dismissed and Congress missing in action, resistance to this Trump power grab could come from unlikely source: federal judges.

Zelizer says some of these same appointees might be standing in the way of dangerous overreaches.

Donald Trump has to contend with anti-administrative thinking, like the major questions doctrine, fashioned by the very Supreme Court supermajority he constructed, including in the context of tariffs.

Julian Zelizer : The doctrine may have all but become a principle of statutory construction, apparently applicable wherever statutes are interpreted.

Zelizer says progressive litigants should nonetheless invoke it to challenge harmful Trump 2.0 agenda items.